


Foundling

by catie_writes_things



Series: Best of Both Worlds [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Adoption, Brief depiction of violence against a child, Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Rey Skywalker, Rey's life on Jakku is not happy, Ultimate big brother Ben Solo, adjustment, space cussing, wish fulfillment? in my star wars? it's more likely than you think
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-01
Updated: 2018-01-29
Packaged: 2019-02-26 04:23:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13228005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catie_writes_things/pseuds/catie_writes_things
Summary: Ben Solo and Luke Skywalker are sidetracked on a mission when their ship is shot down by pirates and crash lands on Jakku. But the Force always has a reason for these things.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place ten years before The Adventures of Ben and Ben.

Seventeen-year-old Ben Solo surveyed the scorched hull of the small ship in dismay. He could see daylight on the other side. “That,” he said, “needs to be repaired.”

“Indeed,” his Uncle Luke agreed. “Fortunately, there are ways to do that. Even on Jakku.”

Sighing in frustration, Ben pulled the hood of his cloak over his head as he followed his uncle out into the desert. There was a settlement visible just on the horizon, with nothing but flat, sandy terrain between them. They set out in that direction.

“Blasted pirates,” he muttered, kicking at a small rock halfway through their tedious trek. There was sand in his boots, and somehow in his mouth - drinking from his canteen did nothing to get rid of the dry, gritty feeling. “Blasted desert planet.”

Luke shot him a longsuffering glance. “Peace, Ben. Perhaps the Force has brought us here for a reason.”

“You say that every time we get sidetracked on a mission,” Ben complained.

“And I’m right every time, aren’t I?”

Ben glared at his uncle. “Dantooine,” he said.

Luke laughed. “Alright,” he conceded. “Other than that, though.”

Ben gave an annoyed grunt, but didn’t argue any further.

The sun was high overhead when they reached the outpost. Sure enough, it was populated almost entirely by scavengers and junk dealers. Finding replacement hull plating was not difficult, though Luke spent longer haggling over the price than Ben would have bothered.

They hired a beast of burden from another local to haul the plating back to their ship, but Luke insisted they delay their departure until the hottest part of the day had passed. Ben looked in the direction they had come from and saw how the air shimmered with heat. Reluctantly, he admitted his uncle was right.

They had just settled in to a discrete shaded alcove to wait when the sound of a loud altercation caught their attention. A young human girl, no older than seven standard years, was yelling at a Dug in Huttese.

Ben’s grasp of the language was better than his mother would have liked, but not as good as his uncle’s. Still, he gathered that the girl was accusing the Dug of stealing from her.

“ _Dopa-maskey sleemo!_ ” she concluded her tirade. The Dug responded with a growl, then raised one foreleg and struck the girl across the face. She fell hard.

Ben barely even saw his uncle move. Suddenly, Luke was standing between the Dug and the girl.

“ _Chess ko_ ,” he cautioned the Dug in a hard voice. Ben had seen actual Hutts back down from the look he had in his eye.

No one else payed them any mind. The Dug muttered a final epithet which Ben didn’t catch, then skulked away.

Ben joined his uncle, who was now kneeling beside the girl. “Let me see,” Luke said gently, still in Huttese. The girl kept her head down. The whole of her small body shook with repressed sobs. “It’s alright,” Luke continued, holding out one hand but carefully not touching her. “I won’t hurt you.”

Slowly, the girl looked up. Ben winced at the sight of the gash over her left eye, and her split lower lip. She was clearly trying her hardest not to cry, though unsuccessfully.

“ _La koona_ ,” Luke said reassuringly. “Can I help you?”

Wide, brown eyes stared at Luke for a moment, glanced at Ben, then fell back to the ground. “ _Eniki_ ,” the girl agreed in a quiet voice. She put one small hand in Luke’s and let him help her up off the ground.

She swayed on her feet, and Luke caught her gently, lifting her to sit on a nearby crate. Ben shrugged his pack off his shoulder, removed the small medkit, and handed it to his uncle.

Luke cleaned the girl’s cuts and treated them with bacta salve, keeping up a steady stream of reassurances. Looking considerably less miserable once she had been patched up, the girl leaned towards Luke and whispered something that made him laugh.

Luke smiled at Ben, then said to the girl. “His Huttese is not as good as yours.”

The girl blushed. “I know Basic, too,” she said shyly, switching languages. Looking at Ben, she said, “You’re very quiet.”

“My name’s Ben,” he said with a shrug. “What’s yours?”

“I’m Rey,” she responded, kicking her legs against the side of the crate. She turned back to her rescuer. “And you?”

“Luke,” he said simply.

“Well, thanks,” Rey said with a nod. She hopped down from the crate, but swayed on her feet again. Ben put out a hand to steady her this time.

“How hard did she hit her head?” he asked his uncle worriedly.

Luke cupped one hand under the girl’s chin and tilted her face up to look at him. Ben knew he was using the Force to assess the extent of her injuries. “It’s not that,” he said after a moment.

“Would you like something to eat?” he asked the girl.

Rey looked conflicted for a moment, but her hunger clearly won out over her reservations. “Yes,” she said pitifully.

They made their way back to the shaded alcove where Luke and Ben had been resting earlier. Luke removed a ration bar from his own pack.

“It’s not much,” he said apologetically. Rey didn’t seem to mind. She tore off the wrapper and ate ravenously. “Slowly,” Luke cautioned. “Don’t make yourself sick.”

Rey headed his warning, but kept her attention fixed on her food.

“When was the last time you ate?” Ben asked bluntly. Luke shot him a disapproving glance.

“I was going to trade the fuses I found for my next meal,” Rey said with her mouth full. She glared in the direction the Dug had wandered off and swallowed. “If that _karking sleemo_ hadn’t stolen them.”

Luke laughed. “Language, young lady,” he scolded with a smile.

Rey looked at him, bewildered. Ben very much doubted anyone had ever chided her for cursing before, or called her a young lady, for that matter.

“You’re a scavenger?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she answered, shoving the last bite of the ration bar in her mouth.

“What about your parents?”

Rey balled the empty wrapper up in a tight fist, chewing hard and swallowing before she answered. “Gone,” she said at last.

“Is there anyone who takes care of you?” Luke asked gently.

Rey shrugged, looking at the fist that held the wrapper. “Mashra helps me sometimes,” she said. “But I take care of myself.” Lifting her chin suddenly, she gave them both scrutinizing looks. “Are you Jedi?” she asked abruptly.

Ben exchanged a glance with his uncle. “What makes you say that?” he demurred. Both of their lightsabers were well hidden.

“You’re nice,” Rey answered with another shrug. “And I’ve heard stories about a Jedi named Luke. Are you him?”

Luke grinned and leaned towards Rey conspiratorially. “Yes,” he whispered.

“Wizard,” the girl said, with the first genuine smile they’d seen from her.

Ben rolled his eyes.

Luke spent the next hour entertaining Rey with stories - some about their own exploits, which Ben was reluctantly persuaded into helping him recount. But mostly he told her youngling’s tales like The Little Lost Bantha Cub and The Princess and the Nuna. Rey listened to them all eagerly. The familiar stories he’d heard from his own parents a thousand times were totally new to her, Ben realized.

When he had finished the legend of the angels of Iego, Luke clapped his hands against his knees. “Well,” he said, “I think it’s time for my nephew and I to return to our ship. We do have repairs to do.”

Rey fidgeted for a moment. “Where is your ship?” she asked.

“A few klicks east of here,” Ben answered.

“I live out that way,” Rey said. “I could go with you. Maybe I can help you fix it?”

Ben studied his uncle’s reaction carefully. They had no need of a child’s help to repair the hull of their ship. But in these kinds of situations, one could never rely on Uncle Luke to take the most practical course of action. Indeed, he seemed to be seriously considering the girl’s offer.

“Thank you, Rey,” said Luke. “That’s very kind of you. We would be delighted.”

Rey beamed. Luke stood and offered her his hand, which she took without hesitating. He lead her towards where their hired pack animal was waiting. Ben followed.

“Only the finest mount for the young lady,” Luke said with an exaggerated bow. Rey gave a clumsy curtsey in return, and Luke lifted her up onto the beast’s back.

“Onward, Sir Jedi,” Rey said with affected solemnity. Ben chuckled in spite of himself, and the girl turned and grinned at him. “And your padawan, too.”

The trek back to the ship was considerably less tedious than the initial journey had been. The sun was at their backs, and Rey and Luke’s idle chatter provided entertaining enough distraction.

Luke had said the Force had brought them there for a reason. Maybe the Force just wanted to make a lonely little girl smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> spoiler alert: the force wants to do more than that


	2. Chapter 2

When they got back to the ship, Ben and Luke handled most of the work of replacing the hull plating, but Rey proved surprisingly handy with a hydrospanner. She insisted she could do the welding, too, though Luke politely refused to let her.

“Alright,” Luke said when the job was done. “I’d better return our friend here.” He nodded towards the beast that had hauled the plating. Looking at Rey, he asked, “Would you like a ride somewhere first?”

“Oh,” Rey said, “No, that’s okay. I’ll just wait here.” She reached out and grabbed Ben’s hand hastily. “So he doesn’t get lonely.”

“Uncle Luke,” Ben said cautiously.

“An excellent idea,” Luke agreed, ignoring him. “Could I just have a word with my nephew before I go?”

“Alright,” Rey said, dropping his hand. She walked over to the ship’s boarding ramp and sat down, kicking at the sand anxiously.

Luke pulled him aside, out of the girl’s earshot.

“What are you doing?” Ben demanded in a low voice. “She’s going to be devastated when we leave. Why are you encouraging her?”

“She’s Force-sensitive,” Luke said. “Haven’t you felt it?”

There _was_ something precocious about the girl. Something unusually perceptive. But that was hardly a midi-chlorian count.

“Even if she is,” Ben said, “then what?”

“The Force brought us here for a reason,” Luke insisted. “Maybe she’s that reason.”

“So we just...take her with us?” Ben asked skeptically.

“We’ll see how the Force guides us,” Luke replied, in his vague Jedi Master voice. “For now, just stay with her until I get back.”

Ben sighed. “Alright,” he acquiesced. Luke nodded, grabbed the pack animal’s harness, and headed back towards the trading outpost. Ben went and sat on the boarding ramp next to Rey.

“I’m thinking of something that flies,” he said after a minute.

Rey gave him a quizzical look. “It’s a game,” he explained. “You’re supposed to guess what I’m thinking of.”

“A ship?” she tried.

“No, that’s too obvious.”

“A bird?”

“No.”

“A cricket?”

“Crickets don’t fly, they hop.”

“Fine, a wasp, then.”

“Nope.”

“I give up,” Rey said, throwing her hands in the air. “What are you thinking of that flies?”

Ben grinned. “Time,” he said, “when you’re playing this game.”

Rey groaned.

“Go on, your turn,” Ben encouraged her.

“Alright,” Rey said. “I’m thinking of something...that crawls.”

They played several more rounds of the guessing game before they grew bored with it. Rey leaned against his shoulder tiredly and they lapsed into silence.

“Can I see your lightsaber?” the girl asked after a while.

“No,” Ben said tersely.

Rey frowned. “Why not?”

“It’s not a toy.”

“I don’t want to play with it,” the girl protested. “I just want to see it.”

With another sigh, Ben reached around under his cloak to the hidden holster on the back of his belt and removed his lightsaber, holding it up carefully out of the girl’s reach.

“Wow,” Rey breathed, picking her head up again. “Did you build it yourself?”

“Yes,” Ben confirmed. “Every Jedi does.”

“How long did it take?”

“A day to find the right crystal,” he answered, “and then another to assemble the saber.”

“What does it feel like?” she asked softly, looking away to the horizon. “When you find the right one?”

Ben studied the girl carefully. She seemed to hold her breath, waiting for his answer. “It feels...like it fits,” he said carefully. “Like it’s always been waiting for you, or you’ve always been waiting for it.”

“But how do you _know_?” Rey pressed, blinking several times. “How do you know there isn’t another one out there that’s really yours?”

“The Force will tell you,” he said, “once you’ve learned how to listen.”

Rey shook her head. “I don’t know how to listen.”

Ben put one hand on her shoulder in an awkward attempt at comfort. “You’ve got time to learn.”

Rey looked up at him, her small, bruised face very serious. “Do I?”

“Sure,” he said. He reholstered his lightsaber, then ran his hand through his short hair. “You can even start now.” He held out both his hands to her. “I’ll show you.”

Rey placed both her small, calloused hands in his. “Close your eyes,” he instructed her. “Focus on just your breathing.” The girl followed his instructions, and Ben closed his eyes as well. He took one deep breath, then another, feeling the familiar currents of the Force around him.

In his meditative state, he could sense that Rey did have an unusually bright presence in the Force. Uncle Luke had been right.

Soon enough, he heard that gentle whispering sound - the Force, speaking to him, not always distinctly, but always there, once he was used to listening for it. Carefully, he reached out to Rey, inviting her to feel what he felt.

Rey gasped. “Is that it?” she said in an awed tone. “That little voice?”

But Ben could feel her disappointment even as she spoke, for her words broke the spell. He opened his eyes to see her frowning at their still clasped hands.

“It’s hard,” she complained. “Listening to something so quiet.”

“It is,” Ben agreed. “It takes lots of practice.”

Rey pulled her hands away from his with a frustrated cry, leapt to her feet, and darted away. “Rey!” Ben called out, hurrying after her. “Wait!”

He came around the ship to find his uncle, crouched on the ground, having caught the fleeing girl. She was sobbing into his shoulder. Luke rubbed slow circles on her back with one hand.

“Please don’t make me go back,” Rey begged. “Don’t leave me here.”

Luke held her for another moment, then gently pulled away, wiping her tears with his gloved right hand, and holding one of her small hands in his left.

“Rey,” he said very seriously, “if you left Jakku, is there anyone who would miss you? Anyone who might come looking for you?”

The girl shook her head pitifully with another hiccoughing sob.

Luke took her other hand in his as well. “Would you like to come with us?”

“To be a Jedi?” Rey asked.

“To come with us,” Luke replied with a smile. “And to be a Jedi as well, if you’d like.”

“Yes,” Rey answered, nodding enthusiastically. “I want to go with you.” She threw her arms around Luke’s neck and buried her face in his shoulder again.

Luke stood, picking the girl up, and walked towards the boarding ramp of the ship. He put one hand on Ben’s shoulder and guided him that way as well.

“The Force always has a reason,” he said softly. Ben didn’t argue.


	3. Chapter 3

Once they had left Jakku and made the jump to lightspeed, Luke left Ben to explain the ship’s controls to a very excited Rey while he retreated from the cockpit. Sitting down at the comms station in the main hold, he sighed, ran one hand over his beard, and keyed in the code for his personal quarters at the Jedi Temple.

Mara answered on the second ring. “Hi,” she said by way of simple greeting, only a trace of static in her blue-tinted image. “How’d the negotiations go?”

Luke smiled at the sound of her voice. “Oh, fine,” he said. “We had a bit of a...detour after that, but we’re on our way home now.”

Mara raised one eyebrow. “What sort of detour?”

“Pirates,” Luke said with a shrug. “Crash landing on Jakku. That kind of thing.”

“I see,” Mara said, clearly knowing there must be more to the story. “And what else happened on Jakku?”

“We found a child,” Luke answered. “She’s Force-sensitive, a little younger than Anakin.”

“Just old enough to start training, in other words,” Mara surmised. “But why do I have the feeling she’s more than just a new student?”

“She had no parents,” Luke explained, shaking his head sadly as he remembered how she’d reacted to his question if anyone would miss her. “She was living by herself, barely eating...I had to stop another scavenger from beating her…”

Mara closed her eyes and sighed. “Oh, Luke…”

“I couldn’t leave her there,” he insisted. “She begged me not to.”

“Of course,” Mara agreed. “But now what?”

“She needs more than just Jedi training,” Luke said. “She needs a family.”

“And you think that should be us.”

Luke breathed a bit easier, relieved that she had said it first. “Yes,” he said. “She needs us.”

Mara was very quiet for a moment. “Maybe she needs you,” she said at last. “I don’t know if I’d be able to help her very much.”

Luke knew all her doubts. Before their son had been born, she had been anxious about her ability to even be a mother, with no role model from her own miserable childhood to draw on. Raising a child who was already broken in so many ways would be an even greater challenge.

“I think you might be able to help her more than I can,” Luke said. “I honestly...have no clue what I’m doing.”

“Please, Skywalker,” Mara said with a teasing smile. “All that touchy-feely stuff is second nature to you.” She shook her head. “Well, now that we’ve each confessed that we feel utterly incompetent, I don’t suppose that’s changed your mind?”

“Not in the slightest,” Luke responded.

“Of course not.” Mara nodded. She thought for a minute. “She trusts you, right?”

“Yes,” Luke said. “And she likes big Ben.”

“Alright. Two people she knows. That’s a start.”

“It’s the only anchor she’ll have,” Luke pointed out. “Everything else will be unfamiliar to her. We can’t just pass her off to someone else.”

“Certainly not at first,” Mara conceded.

“And Ben’s too young to be a father.”

Mara chuckled. “So that leaves us.”

“It looks like it.”

They simply looked at each other for a moment. Neither of them said anything. Then Mara shook her head. “Unbelievable. You’re actually giving me sad mooka eyes.”

“What?” Luke said, affronted. “No, I’m not.”

“Yes, you are,” she insisted. “Your two-year-old son is more subtle. And you don’t even realize you’re doing it, which just makes it worse.”

“Well, is it working, at least?”

“Luke,” Mara said very seriously. “This is going to be very difficult.”

“Yes, it is,” he agreed, equally serious now.

“What’s her name?” she asked.

“Rey,” he answered. Speaking the girl’s name out loud to his wife seemed like turning a corner in the conversation.

“Rey,” she repeated, trying out the sound of it. He knew she was trying out the sound of something else, in her head. He hadn’t been able to stop himself from doing the same.

He could feel the moment Mara’s mind was made up. “Okay,” she said. “We’re doing this.”

Luke’s heart swelled, even knowing the challenges that lay ahead. It was the same profound joy he had felt the day their son had been born. “Thank you,” he said earnestly.

They discussed further practical matters for a while after that, before Mara had to go teach a class. They said their goodbyes, then ended the call. Luke leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes, letting the Force wash over him.

He opened his eyes a moment later and saw Rey standing in the doorway.

“Who were you talking to?” she asked curiously, coming to sit in the other chair at the comms station.

“My wife,” he answered. “You’ll meet her when we get to the Jedi Temple.”

Rey’s eyes widened in excitement. “Is she a Jedi, too?” Luke nodded. The girl practically bounced in her seat. “Is your whole family Jedi?”

“Not my whole family,” Luke said, smiling at Rey’s enthusiasm. “My sister decided not to complete the training, but her children are students at the temple now.”

Rey blinked several times and tilted her head to one side, as if just thinking of something. “What about your father?” she blurted out.

Luke was taken aback by the question. “What about my father?” he deflected.

“Well,” Rey said more hesitantly, “some of the stories I’ve heard say your father was a great Jedi, too, and that he fought in the clome wars.”

“The Clone Wars,” Luke corrected her.

“Yeah,” she said. “But then some of the stories say he was a bad man. So...which is it?”

“Anakin Skywalker, my father,” Luke began the long-practiced answer, “was a great Jedi, who also did horrible things.” Realizing he needed to simplify his explanation somewhat, Luke concluded, “He was a very complicated person. But he died saving my life. In the end, he wanted to be good.”

Rey merely looked at him in silent confusion, wringing her hands in her lap. “Don’t worry,” Luke reassured her. “It took me a long time to understand my father.”

Rey nodded, then looked down at her hands. “He must have loved you a lot,” she said softly.

Luke was taken aback again. It was not the lesson most people took from his father’s life and death. “It took me a long time to understand that, too,” he said. “But yes, I think he did.”


	4. Chapter 4

As they approached the Jedi Temple on Yavin 4 in their patched up ship, Rey stared out the viewport in awe. “It’s so... _green_ ,” she said breathlessly.

Luke smiled, remembering his own similar reaction to this very moon, years ago.

Once they had landed in the temple hanger, Luke dismissed Ben with a proud clap on the shoulder. “Go ahead and find your brothers and sister,” he said. “Tell them all about our latest adventure.”

“Right,” Ben said dryly. Luke hoped the boy would not immediately sulk off to his room. “See you later, Rey.”

“Bye,” Rey said softly, with a little wave. She watched Ben walk away apprehensively. The new surroundings seemed to have made her shy again.

“There are some people I’d like you to meet,” Luke said gently.

“Okay,” the girl responded. She reached up and took his hand without prompting, and stuck close to his side as he led her through the temple corridors to his own quarters.

Luke smiled at the familiar Force signatures he felt as he opened the door and stepped into their living space. “Honey, I’m home,” he called out unnecessarily.

“Hey, farmboy,” his wife answered from her position on the couch, setting aside the datapad she had been reading. On the floor, their two-year-old son dropped the blocks he had been playing with and scrambled to his feet.

“Daddy!” the boy shouted, running over as fast as his little legs could manage.

Luke scooped up his son and kissed the top of his head. “Hi,” he said.

Rey was practically hiding behind him now. Reaching down to place one hand on her shoulder, he gently guided her into the room.

“Rey, this is Mara,” he introduced.

“Hello, Rey,” Mara said, leaning towards the girl.

“And this is Ben,” Luke said, bouncing the giggling child in his arms.

Rey looked up at him, brow furrowed. “Ben is your nephew,” she said. Mara laughed.

“Ben Solo is my nephew,” Luke clarified. “Ben Skywalker is my son.”

“I know, it’s confusing,” Mara reassured Rey. “It wasn’t my idea.” She stood up from the couch, came to Luke’s side, and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek before turning back to the girl. “Luke has told me so much about you. I’d glad to finally meet you.”

Rey fidgeted nervously and said nothing.

Mara shot him a nervous glance of her own before changing tactics. “Would you like to see your room?”

Rey perked up a bit at that. “Okay,” she said softly.

Mara held out her hand. Rey looked to Luke for reassurance. “Go on,” he said. She took Mara’s hand, and Mara led her towards the guest bedroom. Luke followed close behind, knowing Rey would find comfort in his proximity.

He stood in the doorway with Ben, entertaining the boy by making faces, as Mara showed Rey where to put her few possessions, and the spare clothing she’d found for her. “The ‘fresher is right across the hall,” she explained. “Ben’s room is next to yours, and our room is on the other side of that. You can let us know if there’s ever anything you need.”

“Okay,” Rey said again. She looked to Luke, wide-eyed and clearly overwhelmed. “I’m tired.”

“Go ahead and rest,” he told her.

She nodded, kicked off her shoes, and climbed onto the bed. Mara came and took Ben from his arms, bringing him back out into the living space. Luke helped Rey pull back the covers, noting with approval that Mara had put a heavy blanket on the bed. She knew what kids from desert planets were like.

Rey buried her face in her pillow, and Luke tucked the covers around her. “Do you need anything else?” he whispered.

“No,” came her muffled response.

“Alright,” he said. “I’ll be right outside.”

He left the room, leaving the door open, and went back to the living space. Ben was playing with his blocks once more. Mara sat on the floor with him.

“Give it time,” he told her.

She sighed, handing Ben another block. “I know.”

“She had no one. She was completely alone.”

Mara looked at him sadly. “I remember.”

Ben succeeded in placing the block atop his tower and clapped his hands excitedly.

Rey stayed in her room the rest of the afternoon and into the early evening. Luke was just finishing preparing dinner when she quietly appeared in the kitchen before he could check in on her.

“Hi,” he said. “Are you hungry?”

Rey stared at the food he had made out of the corner of her eye, clearly trying to keep her interest in check. “Yeah,” she said with a small nod.

“Come sit,” Mara called from where she was setting the table. Ben was already in his highchair and entertaining himself by babbling and banging his spoon against the tray.

Rey chose the seat nearest to the doorway. Luke set a plate down in front of her, and another for Mara, then went back to get his own. When he sat down, Rey was staring at her food.

“Nerfloaf,” Mara answered her unspoken question as she placed Ben’s food on his tray. “And mashed tubers.”

“Much better than shipboard rations,” Luke joked.

Rey took a careful bite. Her eyes lit up. “It’s warm,” she said.

Luke’s heart broke for the girl all over again, though he kept his reaction carefully neutral. Mara gave her a smile that only he would be able to tell was forced.

“It’s best that way,” Mara said.

Rey nodded and took another, much larger bite. “S’good,” she said with the fork still in her mouth. She looked at Ben, who had dropped his spoon and was happily eating mashed tubers with his hands. “He agrees,” she joked.

Mara laughed, with just a hint of relief. “Thank you,” Luke said with a bow of his head. “I try.”

After dinner, as Luke took Ben to get cleaned up and ready for bed, he heard Rey ask Mara if she knew any stories.

“Well,” Mara said awkwardly, “have you heard the one about the little lost bantha cub?”

“Yeah,” Rey said brightly. “But tell it to me again.”

Mara cleared her throat. “After the sandstorm that drove him from home,” she began from memory, “the little lost bantha cub wandered alone…”

In the bathtub, Ben sat up straighter and leaned towards the sound of his mother’s voice. He looked at his father. “Rey?” he asked.

Luke blinked, surprised that Ben had learned her name already.

“Yeah,” he said. “Rey. That’s right.”


	5. Chapter 5

The next day, Ben Solo stopped by Luke and Mara’s quarters to check on Rey, with his nine-year-old brother in tow. They found her sitting on the couch playing with little Ben while Luke sat at the workstation off to the side, going through the paperwork that had accumulated in his absence.

“Hey,” Ben greeted Rey with an awkward wave. She smiled at him.

“Hi, I’m Anakin,” his brother introduced himself enthusiastically.

Rey gave Luke an exasperated look. “Isn’t Anakin your father?”

“Anakin Skywalker was my father,” Luke said. “Anakin Solo is my nephew.”

Rey rolled her eyes. “You need some new names in your family.”

Ben grinned. “I agree,” he said, picking up his baby cousin from the couch and giving him a mock glare. “This one stole my name.” Little Ben giggled.

“I dunno,” Anakin said as the younger Ben played with the elder’s padawan braid. “It suits him better. Maybe you should change your name, if you don’t want to share.”

“Traitors,” Ben complained, shaking his head. “My whole family are traitors.”

“Well, I’m on your side,” Rey said. “You had it first.”

“Thank you,” Ben replied, with a pointed look at his brother.

“Anakin has just started his Jedi training this year,” Luke cut in before the petty squabbling could go any further. Ben sat next to Rey on the couch with his cousin in his lap. The boy immediately squirmed away from him and toddled off to the toy chest in the corner of the room.

“Yeah,” Anakin was saying excitedly to Rey. “You’ll be in my class, with the initiates.”

Rey’s eyes widened. “What’s it like?”

“It’s mostly meditation and simple stuff like that,” Anakin explained. “But it’s still pretty cool.”

“And a necessary foundation,” Luke added pointedly.

“Right,” Anakin said. “And sometimes we get to have class in the jungle.”

Rey’s jaw dropped. “Out there?” she gasped, pointing to the window.

“Would you like to see the outdoor classroom?” Ben asked.

Rey looked eagerly to Luke. “Can I?”

Luke smiled. “Alright,” he said, “If you go with Ben. And stay on the trail.”

Rey leaped up and grabbed both of Ben’s hands. “Come on!” she said, tugging on him to stand up. “Let’s go!”

As they made their way through the temple, Rey chatted with Anakin, but never let go of Ben’s hand. Ben wondered how much time Rey had spent around children close to her own age. Not much, he would guess.

When they stepped outside into the large clearing around the temple, Rey stopped dead in her tracks. “It’s wet,” she said, reaching out with her free hand as if to grasp the humidity itself. “The air is wet.” She looked up at Ben. “Is it always like that?”

“On this world, usually,” he replied, guiding her towards the path that led to the outdoor classroom.

“How many worlds have you been to?” Rey asked as they started down the trail through the rainforest proper.

“I don’t know,” he said with a shrug. “Lots.”

“I’ve been to seven,” Anakin said proudly, and proceeded to count them off on his fingers. “Coruscant, Corellia, Drall, Naboo, Chandrila, Hosnian Prime, and this one.”

“Do you think I’ll get to see that many worlds someday?”

“Of course,” Anakin replied. “Uncle Luke goes to Coruscant all the time. He’ll probably bring you. And once you’re a padawan like Ben, you get to go everywhere.”

“Not everywhere,” Ben said, though the corner of his mouth twitched upwards at his brother’s tone of admiration.

“Has Luke been everywhere?” Rey wondered.

“Nobody’s been _everywhere_ ,” Ben said with a roll of his eyes.

“But Uncle Luke has been _almost_ everywhere,” Anakin insisted.

“He’s been to a lot of worlds,” Ben allowed. “More than me, certainly.”

When they reached the outdoor classroom, Rey stopped dead again and let out a little gasp.

A circle of twenty-one chairs shaped out of bright red saplings ringed the clearing. Overhead, the branches of the tree-chairs arced and wove together into a translucent green canopy.

Rey cautiously put out one hand and brushed her fingertips against the smooth bark of the nearest sapling. “Is this all _alive_?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Anakin confirmed proudly. “Uncle Luke and Master Tionne worked on it for years.”

“Tree shaping is an ancient Jedi art,” Ben explained. “It’s meant to deepen our connection to the Living Force.”

Rey nodded, let go of Ben’s hand at last, and ran to the center of the classroom. She threw back her head and stared up at the canopy above, where drops of dew clung to delicate leaves, shimmering in the morning sun.

“It’s beautiful,” she said softly.

On the other side of the clearing, where the path curved away further into the jungle, Ben’s twelve-year-old brother came into sight. He was engrossed in reading something on a datapad as he walked, with a large pack slung over one shoulder, and he didn’t seem to notice them at first. Rey’s head snapped in his direction and she took a single step back.

“It’s okay,” Ben said, coming to Rey’s side and putting a hand on her shoulder. “That’s Jacen. He’s my brother, too.”

He felt the girl’s shoulders relax under his hand. Jacen looked up from his datapad, smiled crookedly, and waved. “Hi,” he called.

“What are you doing out here, Jace?” Anakin asked.

“Collecting beetles,” Jacen answered. “Wanna see?”

“Yes!” Anakin replied, running to his brother’s side as Jacen shrugged off his pack and removed several specimens carefully contained in plastiform jars. Jacen pointed out the distinguishing features of each insect and compared them to the field guide on his datapad.

Rey watched them from a distance, leaning slightly into Ben’s side. After a moment, she looked up at Ben with a smirk. “He got his own name,” she said in a low voice.

Ben laughed. “Yes he did,” he agreed. “The only one. My sister Jaina was named after our grandmother.”  

“Hm,” Rey said. “It must be nice, having a big family.”

“I guess it is,” Ben agreed, watching his brothers enthuse over a particularly bizarre looking beetle.

“Rey!” Anakin called over. “You’ve got to come see this!”

Rey hesitated. “Go ahead,” Ben encouraged, giving her a gentle push. “I’ll be right behind you.”

With a last look to Ben for reassurance, Rey crossed the clearing and squatted down next to Jacen, leaning forward to examine the knobbly orange insect in the jar he held up. “Gross,” she said, wrinkling her nose but smiling.

When Jacen had wrapped up his impromptu entomology lesson, the four of them headed back to the temple. Rey and Anakin ran a few paces ahead of the older boys, though every so often Rey would throw a furtive glance over her shoulder, as if to make sure Ben was still there.

“I like her,” Jacen said.

Ben nudged his brother with his elbow. “You like anyone who’ll listen to you talk about bugs.”

Jacen gave him another crooked grin, the one their mother called “the Han smile”, though a pudgy-faced twelve-year-old couldn’t pull it off with quite the same swagger.

“How many datapads can you fit in an empty pack?”

“No,” Ben deadpanned.

“Just one - then it’s not empty anymore!”

Ben sighed as Jacen laughed at his own joke.

They entered the temple through the main hall, where Ben was surprised to find Uncle Luke and Aunt Mara talking to his parents. His mother was holding little Ben, and Jaina was leaning against their father, who had one arm around her shoulders.

“Mom! Dad!” Anakin shouted as he ran to them. Leia handed little Ben over to Mara so she could hug her youngest son. Jacen and the older Ben joined the group, and there was lots more hugging and hair ruffling.

“What are you doing here?” Jacen asked. “We didn’t know you were coming.”

“We just wanted to have a surprise visit,” Leia said with a smile, though the way she glanced at Luke as she did made Ben suspect he had known about it, at least.

“Believe it or not, we actually like seeing you kids,” Han joked, pulling Ben to his side with his free arm. “Look, this one’s almost as tall as me now.”

Ben felt his face flush. “Dad, stop it,” he complained. “It’s barely been two weeks since the last time you saw me.”

“And I swear you’ve gotten taller in the last two weeks,” Han insisted.

“Probably because he eats so much,” Jaina joked. Ben glared at his sister, but his own sarcastic retort died on his lips as he heard a small, sniffling sound.

Rey, momentarily forgotten amidst the Solo family reunion, had quietly latched on to Luke’s leg, and was now crying.

Luke quickly picked her up. “Excuse us,” he said apologetically. Exchanging a worried glance with Mara, he carried the girl away, leaving the rest of the family in awkward silence.

“What was that about?” Jaina asked after a moment.

Mara sighed, shifting her son from one hip to the other. “Rey has been through a lot,” she explained. “And she’s met a lot of new people in the last couple days. It’s a big adjustment for a little girl.”

Anakin frowned in confusion, and looked up at his mother. “But it’s a good adjustment, isn’t it?”

“Of course,” Leia said, smoothing his dark hair affectionately. “But it’s still a very big change. That’s never easy, even when it’s good.”

They relocated to the cafeteria, where Ben had lunch duty and had to leave his family for a bit. As he helped serve the midday meal, he kept an eye on the doorway to see if Luke and Rey would join them. They did not.

He couldn’t shake the nagging feeling of guilt he’d felt when he had seen Rey cry.


	6. Chapter 6

With Rey held tightly in his arms, Luke ducked into one of the nearest rooms off the main hall. It was a lounge usually used by the older students, though he knew it would be empty now as it was nearing lunch time. He sat on one of the couches and settled the girl into his lap.

 

“It’s okay,” he said as he wiped Rey’s tears. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

 

But Rey only shook her head helplessly, and cried harder.

 

“Alright,” Luke said, desperately searching for the right words. He knew she wasn't ill, or injured. “That's alright. Just...take your time.”

 

Rey leaned into him and hid her face against his chest. He held her like that for a long time before her crying finally subsided. She was so still that he wondered if she had fallen asleep. Luke figured she was too old for regular naps, but she had used sleeping to cope with being overwhelmed yesterday…

 

Overwhelmed. That was it.

 

“You met a lot of new people today, didn’t you?” he said softly. Rey looked up at him. Not sleeping, then. The two day old bruise above her eye had faded to a dull yellow. 

 

“I should have told you Leia and Han were coming,” he said. “No more surprises.”

 

Rey gave a little nod and a small sniffle. “Okay,” she said. “I'm sorry.”

 

“Hey,” Luke said, rubbing her back. “It's okay. You feel how you feel. Let it come, and then let it go.”

 

Rey gave him a curious look. He leaned in and whispered with a smile, “Jedi lesson number one.”

 

He was rewarded with a small giggle.

 

“Now, before we do any more lessons, how about lunch?”

 

Rey bit the corner of her lower lip. “Can we go back…” She didn't say the word “home,” but didn't seem to know what else to call it.

 

“Sure,” Luke said. “Whatever you want.”

 

Rey laid her head against his shoulder again but otherwise made no move. Luke stood up carefully, carrying her. She really was very small. It seemed like she hardly weighed anything.

 

When they got back to his quarters, Luke made them a simple lunch of cold sandwiches. Rey ate quickly, as he’d noticed was her habit. When her sandwich had disappeared, she licked the crumbs off her fingers.

 

“Are you still hungry?” Luke asked. Rey gave him only a dumbfounded look for an answer. “You can have more food, if you want,” he explained. “How about some fruit?”

 

Getting up from the kitchen table, he fetched a knife and cutting board and selected a starfruit from the bowl on the counter. Rey came and stood by his elbow, on her tiptoes, watching curiously as he sliced the fruit.

 

“What’s it taste like?” she asked.

 

“Here,” he said, handing her a slice. “Try it.”

 

Rey nibbled on one corner of the star, considered the flavor for a moment, then popped the rest in her mouth.

 

“Like it?” Luke asked. Rey nodded with a smile. “Bring me your plate,” he said. Rey bounded back to the table and did so. Luke slid the half of the fruit he had already sliced onto the plate in her hands. “Enjoy.”

 

Rey sat down at the table again as Luke finished slicing the starfruit, then fetched his own plate and put the rest of the slices on it. “Do you eat new things every day?” Rey asked as he joined her at the table. Half of her fruit slices were already gone; at least two were in her mouth as she spoke.

 

“Slow down,” Luke admonished gently. “You don’t want to choke.”

 

Rey chewed carefully and swallowed before she spoke again. “Do you though?”

 

“We usually eat different things from one day to the next,” Luke answered. “But not new things. Not all the time.”

 

Rey shrugged. “It’s all new to me, so far.” She picked up another fruit slice - just one this time - and ate it with relish. “I didn’t know food could taste this good.”

 

In spite of his resolve to keep up a positive face in front of Rey, Luke couldn’t help a sad sigh. Something as basic as fresh food was an unfamiliar luxury to this girl.

 

Rey picked up on the shift in his mood. “What is it?” she asked, just a hint of anxiety in her voice.

 

“Oh, nothing,” Luke assured her. “I was just thinking, you haven’t even tried hot chocolate yet.”

 

“Is that another kind of fruit?” she asked.

 

Luke laughed. “No,” he said. “But maybe we’ll have some after dinner tonight.”

 

Mara returned with little Ben just as they finished their fruit. Rey ran to great them as Luke brought the dishes to the sink. He washed up quickly, then joined them in the living area, where Rey was regaling Ben with a description of the outdoor classroom she had seen that morning.

 

Ben had seen the classroom himself, but he watched Rey’s animated description with fascination. Rey stretched her arms over her head as she told him about the trees, spreading her hands wide in imitation of leaves. Ben stood up and copied her, a stocky little sprout of a tree next to her wiry sapling. Abruptly she changed topics, describing Jacen’s insect collection instead, mimicking pincers and antennae. Ben continued to copy her, and her story quickly devolved into a game of monkey see, monkey do.

 

Luke sat next to Mara on the couch. She leaned into him, and he put an arm around her shoulders. In contented silence, they watched to two children play, together.


End file.
